The Small Stuff
by Living in a fantasy
Summary: Ever since Max had sacrificed Arcadia Bay to save Chloe, she'd stopped using her powers. It just wasn't worth the risk. That was why she'd decided to never use them again...for the most part. Every once in a while, she used her powers for something small. Usually it was to mess with Chloe.


Ever since I'd chosen to sacrifice Arcadia Bay to keep Chloe alive, I'd stopped using my powers. I couldn't say that messing around with time and destiny had gotten me nothing but trouble because that simply wasn't true. It had gotten me Chloe. But it had gotten me Chloe at the expense of so many people. People I loved and cared about. Good people.

Not everyone had died that day, but Arcadia Bay wasn't exactly built to withstand a tornado like that. Kate, bless her, had survived. So had Victoria. But so many else had not. Joyce, David, and Warren were just several of the many casualties. Since that day I hadn't used my powers again. It just wasn't worth the risk that I might cause something just as horrible to happen.

Well.

I didn't use my powers _for the most part_. There were occasions when I would use them, just a bit, for a little fun. Usually to mess with Chloe.

The first time I had done this was when we were in the middle of a fight.

It had been a long day at the California College of the Arts. I'd had to give a presentation on my most recent shots, and those always wiped me out. I was looking forward to getting back to my apartment and spending the rest of my night simply relaxing.

I could smell the pot as soon as I entered the apartment complex. I paused, held my breath for a moment, and tried to clear my head. It didn't particularly work. I shifted my backpack across my shoulders, trying to distribute the weight more evenly, and walked down the long, narrow hall towards our door. Apartment number nineteen. I was nineteen now. It had been over a year since the tornado in Arcadia Bay. Thinking about it still made me feel sick.

I struggled to find my keys. Chloe had the stereo on, and I could hear the lyrics clearly through our closed door. Did she want us to get kicked out by our landlords? I finally got the door open and was immediately assaulted by a strong cloud of smoke.

"Hey Max, you're back," Chloe drawled from our discount store sofa.

The smoke settled into my chest and I was forced to cough, kicking the door shut behind me. "God, Chloe, I told you to open the windows when you do this." I turned down the music as I passed the stereo on my way to the windows. I tugged on the blinds, needing to do it three times before they finally raised and I was able to open the window.

"It's cold," Chloe complained. She tilted her head to hang over the back of the sofa as she watched me. "Do you want me to waste our heat?"

"If you're getting baked in our apartment with the thin walls and the door with the two inch gap between the bottom of it and the door? Yes." I opened the window wider, brushing a bit off snow off the windowsill to prevent it from making an appearance inside our apartment.

Chloe allowed her weight to roll forwards until she was standing, body sort of lurching lazily in my direction. "Since when are you so on the straight and narrow?" she asked. "If I remember, back when you met up with me again you didn't care if I drank or got high."

"I don't care but that doesn't mean I like it all that much," I said. "And that's not the point."

"Oh please enlighten me then," Chloe said, the sarcasm thick in her voice. "What, you think now that you're going to your big fancy art school you're too good for me just because I work at a tattoo shop?"

I rolled my eyes. "Oh my God, Chloe, I don't care if you work for a tattoo shop. It's not like it's an easy job."

Chloe scowled. "But it's not college, is it? Not some big fancy school. And you're the one who is working as an assistant for some big time photographer, so I must be an embarrassment, right? Can't be seen with your pot-smoking girlfriend?"

"Jesus, Chloe. You're so paranoid."

She came to a stop in front of me, a glare firmly on her face. "So now I'm paranoid?"

" _Yes_ , I never said anything like that!"

She watched me for a moment, eyes, sharp, before she took a few steps back. "Yeah sure. Whatever you say, super Max." She turned around, grabbing her jacket from the couch and throwing it over her shoulders as she headed for the door.

"Chloe, wait!" She didn't stop. She didn't even slow down. "Chloe!" Just before the door could close I focused. Everything backed up in fast-motion, so quickly and unfamiliar that it made me feel dizzy. I stopped, wobbling slightly on my feet as the room re-focused.

Chloe was approaching me again, jacket back to its crumpled up position on the couch, untouched. "Since when are you so on the straight and narrow?" she asked. "If I remember, back when you met me you didn't care if I drank or got high."

Fuck. I'd used my power without even thinking about it. It was the first time I had used it since I'd been in Arcadia Bay, when I had vowed to stop messing around with time. I reached for my nose. No blood, and I felt okay…

Chloe frowned and leaned in more closely, eyes examining my face. "Max?"

"What?" I asked quickly.

"You're acting weird…" she said slowly. "Like you…did you rewind?"

I shook my head quickly. "Of course not, Chloe. You know I don't use my powers anymore."

She crossed her arms across her chest. "So why do you look so guilty?"

I shifted my weight from foot to foot. "I don't."

"Yes you do!" She looked around the apartment, as if this would somehow give her a clue that I had used my powers. "I can't believe it. You can't just use your-"

Quickly, before the argument could escalate again, I rewound.

"Since when are you so on the straight and narrow?" Chloe asked. "If I remember, back when you met me you didn't care if I drank or got high."

This time I had an answer prepped and ready to go. "I'm not."

A disbelieving laugh slipped past Chloe's lips. "Yeah, sure."

"I'm not," I said, wincing at how high and whiney that phrase made my voice sound. "I don't care if you do it."

"Then why are you bitching at me about it?" she asked. Chloe took several steps closer, invading my space. "I mean, you're cool with it, right?"

I took a step back. I loved Chloe, and she was certainly in my personal space all of the time, but I did not appreciate it while I was rewinding to avoid an argument. "I am."

She watched my steadily for a moment, eyes studying me before she abruptly turned around and went back towards the couch and coffee table, where an unused joint was already sitting. She placed the joint between her lips and lit it with her free hand. She took a long, slow inhale, holding it a moment before exhaling a cloud of smoke. Her eyes opened and met mine. She crossed our small living area and offered me the joint. "If you're so cool with it, have some."

"I don't want any."

Chloe held it closer to me. "If you're so cool with it what's wrong with trying some?"

"I don't have to try some to be cool with it."

Her hand didn't move. "Come on. Once."

I shook my head. "I don't want to."

Chloe let her arm fall to her side, fingers still clenched around the joint. "Knew you were judging me."

"God, I'm not," I cried. "This shit is going to be legal soon enough."

"Then try it," she insisted.

This was not what I had pictured with my pre-made response. Before she could insist yet again, I quickly began to rewind. It was a lot like riding a bike. The first time I'd felt a bit wobbly, but it was almost like second nature now. And I had to admit, it felt good to do it again. As always, the motion left me slightly disorientated, but I was no longer so off-balance when I came to a stop again.

Chloe allowed her weight to roll forwards until she was standing, body sort of lurching lazily in my direction. "Since when are you so on the straight and narrow?" she asked. "If I remember, back when you met me you didn't care if I drank or got high."

I shrugged. "I'm not going to stop you from doing what you want. I just don't want the landlord to evict us."

Chloe scoffed. "Clearly you do want to stop me from doing what I want, or you would let me do it."

At this point I was fairly irritated. Chloe was in one of those moods where she was pissed with the world, and now she was taking it out on me. "It is impossible to talk to you sometimes!"

She blinked at me slowly. "What are you talking about?"

"It's like you _want_ to fight with me," I said, crossing my arms, eyes narrowing at her. "It doesn't matter _what_ I say you just have to be mad at me."

"What do you mean it doesn't matter what you say." She paused for a moment, eyes widening slightly. "You used your rewind power!"

"Yes, I did!" I said, taking a step forwards now. "This is the fourth time we're having the same argument. And it doesn't matter at all what I say, you get mad no matter what!"

Now Chloe was the one crossing her arms defensively, a strange mix of a scowl and a pout settled on her lips. "I do not."

"I have four arguments to prove you do," I snapped back.

Chloe watched me a moment longer before going to our window and slamming it closed. "Well if I do, it's because I'm right and you're wrong." She whirled back to face me. "And what do you think you're doing, using your rewind power on me just so you can win the argument? That's hardly fair."

I opened my mouth to speak but simply could not find the words. Instead I turned away and moved to the linen closet, finally shedding my heavy winter coat and exchanging it for a thick Arcadia Bay sweatshirt instead. "I'm not trying to win the argument, I'm trying to avoid the argument. Which is clearly impossible because you're being a brat."

Chloe laughed in disbelief. "I'm being a brat? When you're the one using your power?"

"Yep." The 'p' echoed loudly in the hall. I moved past her towards the kitchen. I began digging around in the fridge, looking for my leftovers from the night before.

"How is that fair?" she asked. Chloe had followed me to the kitchen and was leaning in the doorway now.

I hummed, pushing aside the nearly-empty milk and the entirely-empty carton of orange juice. "Where are my leftovers?"

"What leftovers?" she asked.

I kneeled on the floor, opening the drawers at the bottom of the fridge to check there too. Nothing but some wilting lettuce and several slices of highly-processed cheese. "The leftovers from that Mexican place we went to last night. I was saving them for dinner tonight."

"Haven't seen them."

I frowned, pushing aside the meager contents of our fridge again. I glanced around our kitchen. It wasn't on the counter. Chloe hadn't moved and had gone awfully quiet…I turned to face her properly. She didn't quite meet my eyes. "Did you eat my leftovers?"

"Of course not," she said, much, much too quickly.

I didn't believe her for a second. I turned and stalked to the garbage, ignoring her protests as I lifted the lid to see the remnants of a familiar Styrofoam lid. "You ate my leftovers!"

Chloe went back to crossing her arms and sulking against the wall. "I was hungry and there's no food here."

"Then go out," I cried, dropping the lid back on the garbage can. "Go do the grocery shopping! Order a sub! I don't care but don't eat the food you know I wanted for tonight! I sometimes can't believe how-"

"Rewind!"

I stopped mid-sentence, trying to speak and only successfully managing to mouth a couple of words. "What?"

She held her hand out in a parody of me. "I call a rewind, back to when you were at the fridge."

"You can't call a rewind." I fought to keep the smile off my face.

She didn't move from her position. "If you can do it while we're in the middle of an argument I can too."

I tried to speak, failed again, and let my mouth fall closed. She couldn't actually do that, could she? "Well there is one big difference between me and you, and that is that when I rewind you forget everything that has happened since it no longer happened. But I know what happened. And how the hell are you going to stop me from knowing you ate my leftovers?"

"I called a rewind," she insisted. "Back to the fridge."

No longer able to fight the smile, I simply nodded and went back to the fridge. I opened the door and leaned down, listlessly shoving around random objects. "Where did my leftovers go?"

"Where are my leftovers."

I pulled my head out of the fridge to look at her. "What?"

She was leaning in the doorway. The sunlight from the living room window highlighted her from behind, making her more a silhouette than anything else. Her hair was messy from laying around all day, the small, blue strands lightly brushing against her shoulders. God she was beautiful. "You said 'where are my leftovers?'"

I rolled my eyes fondly and leaned back into the fridge. "Where are my leftovers?"

Chloe came up behind me, her fingers trailing lightly across my arms. "I'm sorry."

I stood, closing the fridge door and turning in Chloe's light grasp. "For what?"

"Your leftovers are gone," she said, voice somber. "While I was getting baked…Victoria picked our lock, raced in here, and stole your leftovers from our fridge because she's hella jealous of our life together!"

A bubble of laughter escaped from my mouth. "That's the worst excuse I've ever heard."

Her hands trailed lower. "Is it working?"

"Oh yes, working so well," I replied.

Her fingers brushed my stomach, then my thighs, then trailed along my zipper. "Are you sure?"

"I am utterly positive that your awful excuse is not working, but if you are no longer mad at me and you're about to have sex with me, then I am willing to forgive you," I said, a grin slowly spreading across my face.

"Perfect," she said, voice cheery for the first time all day. "Then let's finish this makeup elsewhere."

"Somewhere warmer," I agreed, grabbing her hand and leading her towards our bedroom. I had decided over a year ago never to use my powers again, but really every once in a while was probably fine.


End file.
